5 - Conjunctive Accents

Summary

Chapter Five explores the conjunctive accents and their connectivity preferences. Specifically, the rules about which conjunctive accents are placed in a sequence before a disjunctive accent are investigated. Conjunctive accents function as a connector between disjunctive accents and do not exhibit any hierarchical order. This means certain conjunctives prefer to stand before certain disjunctives. Furthermore, secondary accents are examined. In addition to primary stress, some marks are used to stress syllables that are placed neither on the ultima nor on the penultima. These marks are called secondary accents. Their main purpose is to slow down the reading of the syllable either phonetically or musically. The most common secondary accent is Metheg. There are two groups of Metheg: Musical Metheg and Phonetic Metheg. In phonetic Metheg, there are three Methegs: Major Metheg, Minor Metheg, and Shewa Metheg.